No Easy Answers: Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

Hurricane Katrina reminded us that disaster preparedness is fundamental and imperative, especially for New Orleans.

New Orleans for-profit Memorial Hospital owners were unwilling to invest money in moving generators from the basement. They neglected to arrange for emergency transportation of patients. Staff lacked sufficient training.  When levees broke after Katrina, flooding the hospital, the result was five days of dysfunction, chaos, and horrific decisions made by ad hoc leadership.

And deaths. Lots of deaths. 45 patients died in those five days.

When I joined Blogging for Books I was given choices of books to request. I decided on Five Days at Memorial based on the numerous awards and commendations Sheri Fink's book has earned.

Fink's story The Deadly Choices at Memorial appeared in the New York Times Magazine and won a 2010 Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award. Her six years of research culminated in a 500+ page book that cogently presents a complex and unsettling account of medical professionals under unusual stress and raises ethical questions.

Fink reconstructs the events during the disaster in narrative with vividly drawn portraits of patients and health professionals. The conditions inside the hospital were hellish. Generators were flooded and power was lost. Ventilators stopped and so did air conditioning. The heat was stifling. Communication to the outside was lost and unreliable information was being passed. Toilets were overflowing. Patients were moved into the lobby. Patient families were evacuated first. As conditions worsened, and staff suffered from lack of sleep and shock, things spun out of control.

Triage ordained those in good health evacuated first, then those who needed some assistance, and those most ill were to be last. Evacuation of patients involved carrying them carried down unlit stairs, pushing them through a whole in a wall into a parking lot, then carrying them up open metal steps to the helipad. Helicopters arrived sporadicly. Waiting patients died.

Respected surgeon Dr. Anna Pou had assumed leadership. When the staff was told to evacuate a decision had to be reached about what to do with the remaining patients--the most seriously ill, many with DNR orders. Dr. Pou and several others injected these patients with a potent mix; they all died. No patients were left behind when the last nurse and doctor left.

When it became apparent that these patients had not died a 'natural' death Pou and two nurses were arrested. The public was outraged: the nurses and doctors of Memorial were seen as heroic and no one wanted to see them charged with manslaughter. The jury acquitted them.

Patients who were airlifted out ended up languishing in open air while waiting for ambulances to reach them. Doctors watched them die. Had Dr. Pou's decision saved the patients from a painful death? Is euthanasia, or putting patients to 'sleep' ever an ethical choice? At least one patient was injected because he was too obese to move although mentally alert and viable. Do conditions of war or disaster alter moral prerogatives. and should we condemn people in untenable circumstances for not behaving as if conditions were normal?

There are some things we do not want to think about. They are the most important things we need to address. Fink's book is a warning and offers a vehicle for conversation about complex and frightening situations.

I received a free book through Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Five Days at Memorial
Sheri Fink
Broadway Books
$17.00 paperback
ISBN: 978-0-307-71897-6

Barren Cove by Ariel S. Winter: A Sci-Fi Retelling of a Classic Novel

I read Barren Cove in a day, mostly in one evening sitting. From the first line to the last, I loved every page, my brain lighting up in strange and wonderful ways. The story is fresh and original. It is a sci-fi literary novel perfectly written and plotted. The characters distinct, for all their being robots. Yes, robots. And I quickly noted that the story line was a retelling of a 19th c. classic novel. Brilliant!

Sapien rents a beach house to get away from the city and for an opportunity to contemplate. Younger robots had chosen to deactivate. What was he hanging on for? One of the last human-built robots, Sapien lives in a world where robots reproduce 'children' and human life no longer holds any value.

When Sapien decides to visit the beach house owner, a human named Beachstone, he encounters a beautiful female robot name Mary and her distorted brother, Kent. There is a 21st c. gardener robot named Kapec and the house computer Dean. A young robot Clarke has a wild and cruel streak. Sapien is drawn into the family mystery when Dean tells him their history, how Asimov 3000 raised a human child with his children Mary and Kent, alienating his son, and the violent family war that ensued. Sapien does not find the answers he was seeking, but he finds clarity.

I would love to deconstruct the novel but I won't take the fun away from you. But I will say this is an amazing retelling of Wuthering Heights.

I received a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Barren Cove
Ariel S. Winter
Atria Books
Publication April 26, 2016
$25 hard cover
ISBN:9781476797854

From the publisher:

Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominee Ariel S. Winter explores the secret legacy of an enigmatic family in this thrillingly atmospheric novel with a compelling and unexpected twist.

Sapien is a relic of a bygone age, searching for meaning in a world where his outdated allegiances to a time long past have left him isolated and hopeless. Seeking peace and quiet, he retires to a beach house at Barren Cove, a stately Victorian manor even more antiquated than he.

He becomes increasingly fascinated with the family whose lives are entwined with the home—angry and rebellious Clark; flamboyant Kent; fragile, beautiful Mary; and most of all, Beachstone, the mysterious man whose history may hold all the answers Sapien has been searching for. As Sapien unlocks their secret loves and betrayals, the dangerous past of Barren Cove will indelibly change him...and who he is fated to become.

A brilliantly imaginative and poignant tale in the tradition of Kazuo Ishiguro and Neil Gaiman, Barren Cove is a luminous and surprising exploration of legacy, loss, and humanity itself.

Spring Comes to Michigan!

Today we took a wild flower nature walk in Royal Oak, MI a few blocks away from where I attended high school. Bloodroot was in full flower throughout the woods.

The Royal Oak Nature Society has made Tenhave Woods a protected natural area. It was originally a wood lot owned by early settler. High fences (try) to keep out the deer that love the wildflowers, too.

 A vernal pond has turtles and lots of liverwort and duckweed.

 Our naturalist guide explained that Liverwort is spore bearing, not seed creating like Duckweed.

High winds have knocked down trees, opening the canopy and leaving the woods with less protection. So more trees are toppling. The guide has known some of these tress for fifty years. He pointed out American Elm, Butternut, and Tulip trees. He remembers when Chestnut still grew in these woods.

Our guide found this patch of Dutchman's Breeches years ago and altered the path to allow it to flourish.

The woods has two kinds of Trout Lily: one has a red repel and the other yellow.

The May Apple will flower in another week.

The Trillium, both red and white, are not yet in flower either.

Flower nestled in the roots of trees.

We went from ice and snow to 70 degrees in a few weeks. This is Michigan.

Poetry Month & A Poem

April is National Poetry Month. I have been receiving a poem a day with Garrison Keillor's A Writer's Almanac for years, plus this year I am receiving the Knopf Poem a Day. I have written about poetry over the years:

101 Famous Poems
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/09/one-hundred-and-one-famous-poems.html
Emily Dickinson
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/02/love-poems-by-emily-dickinson.html
Stephen Crane
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/03/roots-of-understanding-stephen-cranes.html
Robert Hillyer
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/04/roots-of-understanding-poetry-of-robert.html
Edgar Allen Poe
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-grandfathers-edgar-allen-poe.html
Rainer Maria Rilke
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-rilke-of-ruth-speirs-new-poems.html
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/04/roots-of-understanding-letters-to-young.html
Thomas Hardy
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/01/selected-poems-by-thomas-hardy.html
Anne Sexton
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-poetry-of-anne-sexton.html
Ezra Pound
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-early-poems-of-ezra-pound.html

And in 2015 the entirety of A Year With the Fairies by Anna O. Scott!

Today I want to share a poem I wrote, well, many years ago. It is based on one of my first memories.

*****

"In the beginning was the word"

Nancy A. Bekofske

Recalled:

two figures seated at a kitchen table

lost in the glare of unfiltered sunlight.

Shadow players, male and female,

each with lighted cigarettes streaming blue smoke.

White light, white walls, and shadows moving

and talk about grown-up things while

                                                        I played, pushing

                                     some wheeled toy across the floor

                                             into my parent's dark bedroom,

                  into the nursery with its barred bed now forgotten,

                                          down the narrow uncarpeted hallway,

           into the slatted venetian-blind light of the living room 

                                 the radio standing on the floor playing

                            "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White"

          or was it "The Poor People of Paris," I've forgotten,

                                                   back into the kitchen

where they sat, talking still, pushing papers about,

some business, I suppose, when I heard a name,

a word never before spoken for all I knew,

and I longed to make its magnetic beauty mine:

                                        I stopped my play and mouthed that word

                                                    like a sacred prayer recited in private,

                                                             savoring it on the tongue, my ears

                                                                          ringing with pure response,

                              that one word opening my mind to majestic possibilities.

"What did you say, hon?" Bending down, indulgent,

the man asked, and my mother, embarrassed

urged me to repeat myself, so they could understand.

                                                       I knew they would never understand

                                       the magic of that moment, even at, say, three;

                               I could not utter that word, it would have been

                        a misuse, like swearing with the Deity's name.

They returned to their conversation, dismissing me,

a child, as having done a child-like thing

of great amusement to the wisdom of age.

                                                           Only I knew the worth of the word,

                                              a sound so potent it could stop adult speech

                                                                        and demand their attention

                                                                                      to listen to a child

                                                                                 who had just learned

                                                                   the power of a beautiful word.

Always Indomitable, Always a Lady: Harriet Smith Pullen's Remarkable Life

Eleanor Phillips Brackbill's book The Queen of the Heartbreak Trail is a  the story of her great-grandmother Harriet Smith Pullen (1860-1947) who was part of the great migration across America, moving from Wisconsin to North Dakota to Washington, and ending up in Skagway, Alaska.

It was the legend of Harriet Pullen that Brackbill needed to dismantle to find her 'real' great-grandmother. A 1948 radio play, news stories, and books have propagated bits and pieces of her story. Brackbill researched primary and unpublished documents.

Harriet's unvarnished story is remarkable. She stood up to claim busters and fought years-long legal battles. She drove cattle through freezing water and always rode side saddle, wearing a corset. She raised a family and ensured the children went to college while running a business, homesteading and running a ranch. As a single woman separated from her husband Harriet ventured to the Alaska gold fields looking for her next big opportunity. She established and ran the Pullen House for fifty years. Visiting President Harding drank a glass of milk from Harriet's cows.

Her story would be impressive if a man's; her story is amazing for a female who was always the consummate lady. Her own son described her as a 'great woman, splendidly tall, fashioned in the mould of a goddess, magnificently alive, the noblest woman on earth."

The history of the Smith and Pullen families was not without self-inflicted troubles. Their relations with the Quillyute natives was typical of their time. Harriet's brother taught in a school to help the native children 'integrate' into European culture. Harriet and her husband Dan built their mansion on reservation land. The native houses burned down and Dan built on the land. A long drawn court battle found the Pullens at fault and they lost everything. And what did Harriet do? She followed the money, and went north to Alaska, finding work as a cook as she established another business.

Those interested in Alaskan history or the biography of a strong woman will enjoy reading this book.

Illustrated with maps, a family tree, and photographs.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair an unbiased review.

The Queen of the Heartbreak Trail
Eleanor Phillips Brackbill
Rowman & Littlefield
Publication April 5, 2016
$24.95 hard cover
ISBN: 9781493019137

What I've Been Up To...

...other than reading and writing book reviews!

I have about three hours work left on Love Entwined, first border. I worked on it while with my Tuesday quilt group this week.

I had to scrap two blocks of the 1857 Album quilt. I wanted to do reverse appliqué but the background fabric frayed too much! I hated how it looked. So no progress this week. Last week I finished the block with the toile insert. The quill pen and ink stand are my swap for carpentry tools.

I have a few seams left on my Fox Kit quilt.

I bought a Jeanne Miller handkerchief for $2.75--I suppose not many are interested in a handkerchief with  medieval halberds and shields depicted on it! It's mint with a label!

My husband found a quilting needle sticking out of a vintage quilt we had been gifted. I suppose it has been there since the 1970s!

 The vintage 1930s top had been sewn to a pre-quilted fabric in the 1970s.

We had a week of sleet, ice, and snow. It froze the bird bath. Luckily the daffodils survived and will bloom soon.

I finished sewing Little Hazel's center to the background fabric.

I keep plodding along without finishing anything!

The Joy of Margery Sharp

I have adored the novels of Margery Sharp since I came across Cluny Brown in a Philadelphia used book store some 30+ years ago. When I saw it along with Sharp's The Nutmeg Tree offered on NetGalley I knew they were just what I needed to read. One needs to read all the witty, funny, lovely books one can, especially during this presidential campaign season.

Margery Sharp (1905-1991) started her career writing for Punch and serialized magazine stories. Her first novel appeared in 1930 and her last in 1977. Her novels are comedic yet insightful, witty with a deep humanity. Several of her novels were made into films, including Disney's animated versions of her children's Rescuer series. Open Roads Media is publishing ten of Sharp’s novels as ebooks, and I hope she finds a new generation of fans.

Set in pre-war Britain, Cluny is an orphan living with her uncle, a stolid plumber who loves but does not understand her. He describes twenty-year-old Cluny as 'plain as a boot'. He complains that she 'does not know her place'. Cluny is either very naive and unworldly or game for any new adventure.

When her uncle is away and a plumbing emergency is called in she decides to tackle the job herself.

"The correct costume for a young lady going to fix a gentleman's sink on a Sunday afternoon has never been authoritatively dealt with: Cluny had naturally to carry her uncle's tool-bag, but as an offset wore her best clothes."

She fixes the problem and requests to clean up. She is coaxed into trying out the upscale bath in the customer's bachelor pad, and then to indulge in a cocktail, and was to stay for a party when her uncle arrives. He decides that Cluny must go into service where, perhaps, she will learn her place--and stay out of trouble.

At least going into service would be an adventure.

Cluny had height and a blank expression, the making of a Tall Parlour-maid. Inexperience is a plus: she will be properly trained on the job. She is sent to Friars Carmel. Col. Duff-Graham who has met the train to pick up a Golden Labrador takes her to Friar Carmel. Cluny and the dog bond and she is invited to visit on her day off to walk the dog.

Cluny is to serve a household consisting of two Old English types: a master who has retired from hunting and now writes letters to chums across the British Empire, and a mistress whose passion is her garden. Their son Andrew is concerned with the situation in Europe and has brought home a Polish refugee, Adam Belinski. No one quite know what Belinski does, but he becomes 'The Professor' and is treated royally; he quite likes it but feels it is undeserved. His escape from Europe was not just because he was a Pole in Germany--he is also an inveterate Ladies Man.

"Within a few days Friars Carmel, for perhaps the first time in its history, boiled with passion."

Andrew is in love with Betty Cream, whose beauty attracts every male who sees her. And Belinski is one of them. On the other hand, Belinski and Cluny seem to be at odds with each other--the Pole even throws Gulliver's Travels at her from a window!

Meanwhile walking the Colonel's dog Cluny meets the village chemist who arranges his schedule so he can walk with her every week. Cluny's very plainness and simplicity meets the chemist's approval. She encourages his attention.

In an unexpected twist ending, which includes a man stealing into a woman's bedroom, screams in the night, a quick getaway, and couples ending up with their proper mate, the novel wraps up with Cluny finding her place in the world.

Cluny Brown is about a young girl discovering who she is; in The Nutmeg Tree we meet a woman who believes that her past choices limits her future.

It begins with Julia in the tub singing The Marseilles while her furnishings are being repossessed. A curvaceous thirty-seven year old, Julia loves people and men love Julia. She is broke and soon will be homeless. The bath also holds a grandfather's clock, dishes, and other things with some value--to be sold to the local antique dealer for travel funds. For after sixteen years apart Julia's daughter Susan has requested her mother's presence. Susan is in love but her paternal grandparents and guardians have other plans for her.


Julia was a nineteen-year-old chorus girl when she woke up with Sylvester Packett, a WWI soldier who was passing through. When she told him about her pregnancy he wanted to do the 'right thing' and marry her. She was sent to his parents in the country while he went France and his death.

Julia tried to fit into the refined and quiet country life. She tried for a year and seven months before returning to London and the 'bad' life of the theater. The Packetts tried, too. After Julia was fully out of Susan's life, the Packetts offered to make Susan their heir and gave Julia seven thousand pounds in stock. Mrs. Packett thought Julia should open a cake shop. Of course, Julia tried her hand at staging plays and lost everything.

Julia knows her failings and faults. Now recalled by Susan she wants to appear respectful. She buys Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga to read, the first novel she has ever bought. She fancied it was the right sort of book for a lady to be reading.

On the trip she meets a traveling trapeze artist who falls for her, and she is quite smitten herself. He wants to marry her, and a regretful Julia must leave him behind and go to her daughter.

"if she [Julia] took lovers more freely than most women it was largely because she could not bear to see men sad when it was so easy to make them happy."

She endeavors to reform herself during the visit to the Packetts and her daughter.

"She had often wanted to be good before. She had a great admiration for goodness, she loved it sincerely and humbly, as a peasant loves a saint. if she had never been good before it was not because her spirit was unwilling, but because the flesh was so remarkably weak."

She passes pretty well until she meets Susan's young man Bryan and realizes they are two of a kind, both a 'bad' sort. He is not good enough for Susan. It is an unsuitable attachment. Bryan also recognizes a fellow free spirit in Julia.  The battle for Susan is on.

Susan is a prig and a perfectionist, a college student who needs a project. Bryan has become her project. She just knows she can help him make something of himself. Bryan just wants to knock about a bit.

Julia is a delightful character, flawed and feckless and bright and joyful. There are hilarious scenes with Julia secretly reverting 'to type' and handling the men who pursue her. Both Julia and Susan undergo an experience of self-recognition, necessary to their development. Very Jane Austenish! The novel ends with a true wish fulfillment happy endings.

I am delighted to have revisited Sharp.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read more at the Margery Sharp blog at https://margerysharp.wordpress.com

Cluny Brown, ISBN: 9781504034258
The Nutmeg Tree, ISBN: 9781504034326
by Margery Sharp
Publication April 12, 2016
Open Road Integrated Media